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12-Amethyst
April 2, 2013
Question

Printer select by Paper Size

  • April 2, 2013
  • 2 replies
  • 5004 views

Hi,

I think this is possible, but I don´t know how to do it:

We have a plotter and a printer(Okic5600).

I want to create a mapkey to print with the following condition:

If paper size=A4 send to Printer

Else

Send to Plotter

I´m trying to achieve this with one single click. Can this be done using the PCF files?

I'm also having problems configuring the pcf file for the Oki printer. I made a copy of generic postscript pcf file and added the Plotter Command: WINDOWS_PRINT_MANAGER OkiC5600

It always returns an error message on printer:"Error: Invalid Data"

I tried through DOS commands too (using "print /d", "lpr" and "net use") always getting the same result.

I´m using Creo 2 on Win7 and the printer is directly conected to the network.

Thanks.


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2 replies

24-Ruby III
April 3, 2013

Jose,

1.]

In PCF file, you cannot use IF-THEN-ELSE command.

2.]

According to http://www.okic5600.co.uk/index.asp?content=okic5600spec , your printer does not understand Postscript language (see Printer languages section). You have to print using MS Printer Manager from Creo.

Martin Hanak

12-Amethyst
April 3, 2013

Hi Martin,

Thanks for your help.

I think that I gonna give up of the automatic printer selection for now.

If I can´t use a pcf file to control the printer, I will create a mapkey using the Ms Printer Manager and then call a script to automate the process.

Jose

12-Amethyst
October 24, 2013

I come back to this subject using another aproach.

My main target is to have only one mapkey to print/plot drawings.

By now, I have two mapkeys: one that sends a drawing to a printer, and other thats sends to a plotter.

I´m trying to create a third mapkey using a small external script that reads the value of the drawing parameter "$format" then calls the designated mapkey.

This is the only thing that is missing. If it was a normal parameter I could edit it and copy the value to the clipboard and it was done. Now, as it is a system parameter I don´t know how to get it.

Any ideas ?

José

24-Ruby III
October 25, 2013

Jose,

you can put plotter_command option, see the following example:

plotter_command CMD /C c:\bin\printfile.bat

In printfile.bat you can do what do you want...

Print file is passed on as 1st argument when printfile.bat is called, therefore you can use %1 inside it.

%1 represents print file, you can analyze its contents and look for drawing size. Then you can send print file to the right printer.

Martin Hanak